Experimental study on leaf litter briquettes combustion as alternative energy source for cooking

Indonesia has abundant natural resources spread throughout the islands. The utilization of these natural potentials has not been fully played and developed to meet daily needs such as for cooking. The purpose of this study is to explore the potential of leaf litter as a domestic source of energy for cooking. In particular, a set of laboratory scaled experiment was conducted by using leaf litter of the species Artocarpus champaden, L., Nephelium lappaceum, L., and Mangifera indica, L. In Indonesia these species are known as Cempedak, Rambutan, and Mangga trees which produce fallen leaf throughout the years. A way of reducing the leaf litter problems by local people is by collecting it from the garden and roof, then burn it to reduce the volume. The experimental work was carried out through some steps. The leaf litter was transformed to biomass briquettes fuel in order to increase energy content for combustion by adding Canola Oil and Starch as a binder. The briquettes were produced manually with minimum mechanical works. Thermal analysis, including calorific value, proximate and ultimate analysis, was performed by standard method and equipment. The experiment was carried out by using a biomass stove with a fuel chamber volume of approximately 660 cm3. A fan was attached to the stove to supply an updraft forced vortex flow of air. Water Boiling Test method was performed to measure the burning characteristic and stove efficiency. It was found that the briquettes (100 grams) from all leaf type tested can boil the water of 1000 ml within 7 minutes. In general, the burning performance of the briquettes were related to proximate and ultimate analysis of the samples. Nevertheless, by comparing the performance using Water Boiling Test suggested that the discrepancies of the performance using different types of leaf litter were not significant. This work showed that leaf litter has the potential as a reliable energy source for cooking in household at rural areas.